nothing in here is true

Thursday, January 20, 2005

“George W. Bush was officially sworn in to begin his second term as president of the United States Thursday, promising to pursue “the expansion of freedom in all the world.”-CBC

If the last four years are an indication of Bush’s idea of ‘freedom’, I am officially moving to Mars.

I have studied the United States, in one way or another, since I was a teenager. Be it US foreign and covert policy, the Civil War era, pop culture, or civil rights; I have looked south with a voyeuristic fascination the better part of my life.

I have to admit that in November of last year I lost a great deal of respect for a healthy slice of America. I have long regarded the United States government, and its various internal apparatuses, quite coolly, but must admit to readdressing my personal definition of culpability with regards to the American public after November’s election. Given its outcome, how could I forgive those that would willingly back such recklessness, such callousness, and such blatant neo imperialism?

People make mistakes, true enough, but the one that was sworn in today for a second term in office has been responsible for the deaths of tens of thousands of innocents. And that, I am afraid, is not so easily forgiven.

There are good people in the US working tirelessly to monitor the Bush administration, to hold it accountable, and to inform the world of what is happening behind closed doors. They deserve our respect and whatever assistance we can offer them, as they are on the front lines of a domestic war that reverberates outwards to affect billions of others.

There are lives to be saved by doing whatever can be done in every American house, in every American shop, in every American legislature, and on every American street corner. One hopes that Americans will remember that. One hopes that in the future, foreigners won’t need to have to tell them.

How will George Walker Bush be remembered? That will depend on how the person who is sworn in on this day in 2009 addresses the damage he has caused to what was, in antiquity, a good idea. Because today, Thomas Jefferson, asleep in the soil of Virginia, officially became a citizen of France.

$2,000: Amount FDR spent on the inaugural in 1945…about $20,000 in today’s dollars.

200: Number of Humvees outfitted with top-of-the-line armor for troops in Iraq that could have been purchased with the amount of money blown on the inauguration.

$10,000: Price of an inaugural package at the Fairmont Hotel, which includes a Beluga caviar and Dom Perignon reception, a chauffeured Rolls Royce and two actors posing as “faux” Secret Service agents, complete with black sunglasses and cufflink walkie-talkies.